Chairman of the Board; Director since 2011 SVP and CIO at Avnet, Inc

Steve Phillips is senior vice president and chief information officer for Avnet, Inc., reporting to Avnet CEO Rick Hamada. He is also a member of the Avnet Executive Board and a corporate officer.

Mr. Phillips came to Avnet with the 2005 acquisition of Memec, where he had served as senior vice president and chief information officer since 2004. Prior to joining Memec, Mr. Phillips was senior vice president and chief information officer for Gateway Inc. He joined Gateway in 1999 and served as vice president of information technology (IT) in London and San Diego before his appointment in 2003 to chief information officer.

Between 1996 and 1999, he worked for Diageo, the international food and drinks group, where he was the IT director for its European foods division. He previously spent eight years in a variety of leadership roles at Thorn EMI, a U.K. defense-electronics company.

Under Mr. Phillips' IT leadership, Avnet has been recognized with multiple IT awards, including CIO100, InformationWeek 500 and InfoWorld Green 15. Additionally, he was a recipient of an HMG Strategy 2012 Transformational CIO Leadership Award which honors top performing CIOs who have excelled in leadership, innovation, transformation, industry give-back and management of extreme growth. In 2011, Computerworld named Mr. Phillips a "Premier 100 IT Leader." This lifetime recognition honors executives for exceptional technology leadership, innovative ideas to address business challenges and effectively managing IT strategies.

Mr. Phillips is chairman of the board at Wick Communications, a private newspaper and specialty publications company. From 2008 through 2011, he served as chairman of the board of the Arizona Technology Council, a trade association that connects, represents and supports Arizona's technology industry.

Mr. Phillips holds a BSc (Hons) in Electronic Engineering from Essex University and a postgraduate Diploma in Management Studies from Thames Valley University. He is a Fellow of the Institution of Engineering & Technology.